


reassimilation (snap snap snap)

by Katbelle



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bittersweet, Canon Temporary Character Death, Fake Character Death, Families of Choice, Friendship, Gen, Making Up, Matt tries his best to reconnect with people, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post-Season/Series 03, Surprise Ending, This takes place after all the Netflix shows and includes spoilers for all of them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:35:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22081927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katbelle/pseuds/Katbelle
Summary: While settling in in his newly recovered life, Matt realises how disconnected he became from the people close to him. Life went on without him in it and he tries to recapture some of his lost connections. It all goes well. Perhaps even too well.
Relationships: Jessica Jones & Matt Murdock, Luke Cage & Matt Murdock, Matt Murdock & Danny Rand, Matt Murdock & Franklin "Foggy" Nelson, Matt Murdock & Karen Page, Matt Murdock & Marci Stahl
Comments: 11
Kudos: 99
Collections: DDE’s 2020 New Year’s Day Exchange





	reassimilation (snap snap snap)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [politik](https://archiveofourown.org/users/politik/gifts).



> Dear giftee! I do apologise for the delay in posting, but I'm stuck in the mountains with my family and the only place around that has decent internet is the middle of a ski slope (bad place to edit or post things). Nevertheless, here it is (if late). Happy New Year!

**reassimilation (snap snap snap)**

_You're always coming back a little older  
but it looks all right on you._

_Karen_

They sign a lease on their new place on Tuesday afternoon and spend the rest of the day sitting by the one solitary table that came with it, drinking cheap wine that Karen ran to buy in the deli at the corner. Because that's where they are now; in the part of their neighbourhood that has plenty of booze in the local shops, but not a single decent cafe. They drink the wine out of plastic cups and it makes Matt think of his and Foggy's early law school days, of sneaking vodka into their dorm and drinking to things that were important then, but didn't matter in retrospect.

The wine is cheap, but not terrible, and they all find themselves laughing. It's still early; the terror of Fisk's return and the losses they've sustained because of it are still fresh wounds in their hearts and minds, and then there are the badly-healed wounds that Matt – his disappearance, his _death_ – inflicted on them last year. They got so caught up in Fisk, in trying to bring him down for good, that that hurt was pushed aside, temporarily forgotten, brushed aside as something to worry about later, should a later be in the cards for them. Matt's not lying to himself; he knows that now that they're finally settling in, giving this partnership of theirs another go, all their problems – all the reasons this partnership didn't work out the first time round – will rear their heads. All the things that Foggy hated and all the reasons not to rely on Matt; all the things Matt wanted to tell his friends and all the reasons why he never did. They were still Foggy and Karen and he was still Matt, and less than two years ago they decided to part ways, decided that perhaps being separate was the best course of action for them. Now they were going against that decision, together, and Matt knew that it would be terrifyingly easy to fall back into their old patterns and end up in the exact same place as before. 

He didn't want to end up bloody and alone. He's been bloody and alone, he's _survived_ being bloody and alone, and he knew what a terrible fate that was. A part of him envied the bravado of the Matt of three years ago, who listened to Claire's comment about martyrs with a small smile and thought himself capable of that, of such a sacrifice for his city and cause. A bigger part of him considered the Matt of three years ago a naive idiot who didn't know enough.

He traces the rim of his plastic cup, only half paying attention to the story about her dog and her neighbour that Karen is telling. He didn't even know Karen _had_ a dog.

"I can't promise to always be honest with you," he says and Karen immediately pauses in her tale.

"What?" she asks, uncertain about where that came from. She knew what he meant, she just wasn't sure why now.

Matt pays her no mind. "Sometimes I might decide to lie or withhold, or be forced to do that, to keep you safe. And you have to trust that I know about the dangers and that I'm not making those decisions lightly. You have to trust that sometimes it is better if you don't know."

"Historically," Foggy interjects, "it's the not knowing stuff that gets the loved ones of superheroes into trouble. Or dead."

He's not wrong, Matt thinks as he remembers Claire being kidnapped and Karen being kidnapped and Foggy almost dying. "I can't make you a lot of promises that you'd want me to," he tells them, "but I can promise that I'll always try to tell you all that you need to know."

"That's not great," Karen says, and Matt's heart sinks, "but I guess that's a start."

"I need you to promise something else." Foggy pauses and Matt holds his breath. "No more fake dying. You can't just disappear off the face of the Earth like that, poof out and leave us wondering if you're dead or alive."

Matt didn't particularly enjoy being fake dead himself, but he knows that there were uses for such a tactic. "I can't promise you that," he says slowly, "but I can promise you that I will find a way to tell you that I'm alive."

Foggy and Karen look at each other – Matt is sure that they're conducting a silent conversation using just their eyebrows and facial expressions and he patiently waits for them to be done – and then Foggy sighs. "That's probably the best we can get out of you for now. So fine. It's a deal."

Matt harbours no illusions that Foggy will not come back to this, that he won't demand more, more inclusion, more _everything_ that Matt will be forced to deny him. But perhaps by the time that happens, they will have both changed enough that that denial won't be the end of them the way it was before.

Foggy turns to Karen again and then makes a show of looking at his watch. "It's late," he announces, a tad too loud, "I should be going. Marci and I have a dinner reservation."

Matt listens. Not a lie. But not the entire truth either, and Matt can tell by the sudden shift in the room's atmosphere that potentially being late is not what's making Foggy leave now.

"Have fun," Karen tells Foggy as he gets up and gets his coat on. For a split second Matt is tempted to ask him to say 'hi' to Marci from him, but then he realises he doesn't know what Marci knows. Does she know he was supposed to be dead? Does she know that he isn't? Did Foggy tell her?

 _What_ did Foggy tell her?

In the end Matt says nothing and Foggy leaves their brand new office with its solitary table and both of his friends behind. Matt's quiet as Foggy makes his way to their front door and he remains quiet until Foggy leaves the building.

Karen is making a lot of effort not to look at him and Matt suddenly understands. "He did that to leave us alone."

"He thought we need to talk," Karen confirms, directing her words at the door to Matt's new room.

They probably do. Matt doesn't know what to say. He and Karen went on a date. They kissed. Then Elektra happened. Then Matt told Karen his secret and she didn't react well and then she didn't speak to him for months. And then he died. The fact that he came back doesn't seem to make much of a difference.

"It's complicated," he finds himself saying out loud and Karen laughs.

"To put it mildly." He can hear the grin in her voice. If nothing else, that tells him there are no hard feelings between them concerning that part of their relationship. "Most people don't have 'kidnapped by an evil ninja cult' as their first date follow-up."

She's jesting, but he still winces. It's not a good memory, least of all because of the danger Karen was in at the time. Many things went wrong that night. "I'm sorry that happened to you."

Karen shrugs. "Not entirely your fault. I do seem to attract danger regardless of you."

He thinks briefly of the hostage situation that Karen was involved in as a _Bulletin_ reporter, and of Frank Castle. He's heard of it, when he was at the convent. Perhaps Karen was right; perhaps her being put in danger all too often had more to do with the kind of person Karen was and the kind of company she kept rather than him personally. It would do him good to stop assuming that everything always had something to do with Daredevil; it'd be healthy, even. New, if not exactly improved, Matt for a new try at life.

"I'm still sorry."

Karen's heartbeat picks up, from nerves or excitement, he can't tell. "I know," she says, "and I love you for that."

She doesn't mean it in a romantic sense and he finds that he doesn't mind. Perhaps two years ago he would have. Perhaps before the Hand and Midland Circle, before Elektra waltzed back into his life and made him reassess everything he thought he knew about himself. Perhaps before it turned out that he and Karen were different people than the masks they showed the world around.

It doesn't hurt. There's a feeling of wistfulness that accompanies the thought, a sliver of ache for what could have been if the last two years turned out differently. What would have followed their first date had Elektra not come to him and started a chain of events that derailed everything.

Probably nothing good, all in all. They both had expectations of each other that were impossible to meet simply because they were hiding from each other who they really were.

"We're... fine, right?" 

It's Karen who asks that. It's Karen who's worried, now, as if it were her who screwed everything up. He can't help smiling at that. "It would be a douchebag move on my part if I came back to life with grudges against friends, wouldn't it?"

Karen huffs out a laugh and shakes her head. "Then Foggy got what he wanted. We talked."

Did they really? "I'm sorry. For everything," Matt says. "How it all turned out."

He's sorry about how their budding romance got derailed by Elektra. He's sorry about all the lies, about not being there when he was needed. He's sorry about Midland Circle and the grief he's caused, and for even more lies.

And Karen understands. She shrugs. "I don't know," she says. "I think that, in the end, things worked out pretty okay."

He cracks a smile and, he hopes, there's an answering grin on Karen's face.

_Foggy_

"Did you and Karen talk?"

Matt stops with a tort case law book in his hand, mid-motion between taking it out of the cardboard box and putting it on his shelf. They've been unpacking their things for the past two hours; the new furniture Foggy bought for them was delivered in the morning and they've decided to use their unexpectedly obligation-free afternoon setting the office up. 

From the moment they came in the differences in their statuses became obvious. Matt had two boxes with him, filled with some old case files and books that he's carried out of Nelson & Murdock office when they dissolved their partnership the last time. In the time since he didn't have the chance to acquire new materials or clients, what with being presumed dead for months and all. But Foggy. If the brand-new furniture that he could apparently afford for them hadn't clued Matt in, the number of boxes Foggy had delivered – and he had them delivered, he didn't bring them himself like Matt had – the secretary hopeful who appeared for fifteen minutes, exchanged a couple of laughs with Foggy and promptly left (upon being questioned Foggy said, very patiently, "We need a new secretary since Karen's not doing that job anymore") and the couple of calls Foggy took, all of which ended with 'I will be available for appointments starting this Monday', would have made Foggy's position on the legal map of New York apparent.

They simply weren't in the same league anymore, and Matt tried very hard not to have that bother him.

"We did," Matt says. He puts the book on the shelf, taking care to align it perfectly with the ones already on it.

"And...?"

"And what?"

"Are you... back to being a thing?"

Matt laughs. "We were hardly a thing before, Fog. We went out, once. Nothing else happened."

" _Yet_ ," Foggy presses.

Matt's not sure why. "And nothing else _will_ happen. I'm pretty sure she has someone."

Foggy hums and moves to help put the few of Matt's case files in the filing cabinet. "And you're fine. There will be no almost romance awkwardness at the office." Matt shakes his head. Foggy lets out a breath, relieved. "Good. That would make for a terrible start of our new enterprise."

There's about a million things Matt feels he should say here, to Foggy, that he should ask. About a million apologies to deliver, excuses to make, promises not to keep. About a million missteps and hurts he should be trying to make up for. As usual when outside the courtroom and faced with vulnerability, he can't find the appropriate words.

He says nothing and reaches into the cardboard box instead. He trails his fingers over their old practice sign. "Yes, it would."

_interlude_

It occurs to him, one night, when he's contemplating if he should put the mask on and go out, that Karen and Foggy aren't the only people that he should be trying to make up with.

_Claire_

He starts by calling Claire's old number. An automated voice instructs him to leave a message.

He clears his throat. Realises he has no idea what has happened to Claire since Midland Circle, when he was hiding out at the convent. That certainly makes conversations difficult. Even worse is the fact that he's talking into a void; if his call had connected, he'd at least be able to judge Claire's reaction from the tone of her voice. This way he has nothing.

"Claire," he says. Stops. He's out of ideas. 

He disconnects the call, leaves his phone on the kitchen table and goes to get himself a beer. He drinks half of the bottle almost in one go. Damn.

He grabs the phone again and dials Claire. Again, he's redirected to voicemail. "Claire," he starts again, "it's Matt." He cringes. Of course she knows it's him, she'd be able to recognise his voice. "I don't know if you've been following the news lately, but... Fisk was back. We got rid of him, again, this time for good, I hope."

Talk about Fisk. Yeah, great choice. What the hell, Matt.

"I, um. I'm back. Didn't die." Which Claire would have already surmised from the fact that he was calling her. "I just wanted--I wanted to say that I'm sorry. For Midland Circle. For making you think I didn't make it. I--" He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Goes for sincerity, because Claire somehow always knew when he was bullshitting. "I don't really have an explanation for why I did that. And I'm sorry for that too. I hope you're alright. Call me back. Or don't, if you don't want to."

He hangs up and shoves the phone away. God. He hates phone calls. He relies so much on people's bodily cues, their heartbeat, sweat, unconscious ticks that he can only catch in face-to-face conversation. Without that he feels... 

Blind.

He opens an overhead cupboard and reaches for a bottle of scotch that Foggy had once stashed in there. He's too sober for this.

Claire doesn't call back.

_Foggy (two)_

"I tried calling Claire," he says on Monday, when they're closing the office.

Karen has already left, citing a prior engagement, so it's only Foggy and him. It was a good day. They've seen three potential clients, two of which were small business owners that followed Foggy from Hogarth's firm. 

Foggy pauses in stirring his tea. "Oh?"

"She didn't answer. Or call me back."

Foggy's silent for a moment. "Are you surprised?" he asks eventually. There's no judgement in his voice, but Matt imagines a disapproving frown graces Foggy's face nevertheless.

No, he's not. He shrugs.

Foggy sighs. "It might have nothing to do with you," he says. "I've heard she moved back to her mother, in Cuba. She broke up with Luke. Maybe she just doesn't want to have anything to do with," Foggy waves a hand, "all of this."

"Claire and Luke broke up?" Matt frowns. The last time he saw them, they seemed happy. He was under the impression that Luke and Claire were a particularly well-matched couple.

Foggy nods and takes a sip of his tea. "Shit went down in Harlem a few months ago," he not-explains. "I'm not sure on the details. Hey, do you think we could get Luke to become our client?"

Foggy rambles about some lawsuit he helped Luke with during Matt's 'absence' – as they colloquially began to refer to it – and Matt realises two more things: one, that life went on for his friends and one-time teammates when he was gone, and two, that he was now outside of a circle of connections that seemed to have bloomed in the post-Midland world.

Sobering thoughts.

_Luke_

Matt spends three weeks stalking out Harlem and doesn't meet Luke Cage..

Matt, at his core, is a Hell's Kitchen guy. He was born there and grew up there, and while he understands that the Kitchen is merely a neighbourhood in Manhattan, in New York City, to him it sometimes feels like an entirely separate city. He's the protector of Hell's Kitchen and rarely ventures outside of his couple of blocks. But what Foggy told him – or rather what he didn't tell him – raised suspicions.

Shit went down in Harlem. Luke and Claire broke up. Claire left. Each of those on their own was enough to make one concerned. But together they spelt trouble.

He fails to run into a single lowlife. Harlem feels like it's been transformed into a stronghold, with the seat of power located in Harlem Paradise from which Luke Cage oversaw his kingdom. Or at least that's what he gets told by Turk whom he runs into on the edge of Central Park. Turk is braver – or stupider, or both – than most, but even he doesn't dare venture into Harlem.

"Are you crazy?" Turk sputters when Matt twists his arm farther behind his back. "No one wants to end up on Cage's bad side! He's the king and sheriff, man. They say cops ain't doing shit because he's keeps the order, but that's bull."

"How so?"

"He's got everyone running scared. He's a crime boss in all but name now, with the Stokes' old people working for him now and dealings with mobsters. He says he wants to bring justice to Harlem, but that ain't any justice but his own."

Matt lets go of Turk's arm and the man stumbles forward. He turns back and takes his first good look at the person who pinned him to the wall and demanded answers. Matt can hear a minute spike in Turk's heartbeat the moment he recognises him.

"Aren't you supposed to be dead?"

Matt grins. "Not anymore."

He sprints away before Turk has the chance to react.

What he's learnt from Turk troubles him. The Luke he's met during that business with the Hand was a good man. It was difficult to imagine that that same man, a man that Claire – a woman for whom Matt had nothing but respect and who possessed a great degree of common sense – loved could have become the very same thing he once fought against.

Turk was a small-time crook. Perhaps his perspective wasn't the most unbiased. He should check for himself, to be sure of what really is going on in that club of Luke's. 

That's what he tells himself when he suggests the next day, "We should go out for drinks."

Foggy's fork stops midway to his mouth. A piece of lettuce falls off it and flops sadly onto their kitchen table. "Drinks?"

Matt nods. "We haven't been," technically since that day Foggy gave him Jessica Jones' file, but that wasn't a real social meeting so it didn't matter, which meant the last time they just went out casually was the night they met Grotto, "in a while."

"Yeah." Foggy stabs his salad. "Yeah, I'd like that. We could go to Josie's, she'd be happy to see us."

"I was thinking something... more high-end."

"There are a few bars and clubs that I used to go to with people I worked with at Hogarth's, I could take you to one of those."

Matt takes a breath. "How would you feel about Harlem's Paradise?"

Silence. Matt clenches his fists to avoid fidgeting. He's aware that Foggy put his fork down and is now studying him. Oh, he cocked his head. That is rarely a good sign.

"That's Luke Cage's club," Foggy says slowly, and Matt wonders for a moment how come Foggy knows that before he remembers that yes, Foggy was Luke's lawyer for a hot minute last year. They had common history now. "Is there a reason why you'd rather go to Luke Cage's club out in Harlem than one of the numerous establishments closer to where we live?"

"They have great live music."

Foggy taps his fingers on the table. Matt steps from one foot to the other nervously and mentally berates himself for that. He's not a teenaged girl asking a crush out, God. "Is this some sort of a reconnaissance outing?" Foggy asks. "Are you trying to find something out and are using me as an excuse?"

Yes. "No," Matt assures him. "It's just..."

"Yes...?"

"I've heard Luke hangs around the club most days. There's a chance I could see him. I don't know if he knows that I'm not, you know--"

"Dead," Foggy supplants.

"--dead, yes, and I could use some moral support." Matt refuses to feel bad. This isn't entirely a lie. "And the live music is great there, there's also that."

The tapping continues in an annoyingly monotone pattern. Tap-tap-tap, Foggy can probably see right through him. But none of what he's said is a lie, and he never promised to be entirely honest. This is a half-lie at best.

The tapping stops. "You won't be able to see Luke anyway," Foggy says, and it takes Matt a moment to realise that Foggy is making a joke and not an observation. "Okay, fine. I can be your emotional support recon partner."

"It's not a recon outing," Matt insists. Even though it kind of is.

Foggy snorts. "Sure isn't," he says and his tone of voice makes it clear that he doesn't believe Matt. How far they've come as friends, that Foggy no longer simply believed what Matt was saying. 

And how low they've fallen.

_Foggy (three)_

There's nothing in Harlem's Paradise that Matt can spot that speaks of immediate danger. They get seated at a booth and order their drinks – Matt's not really used to fancy clubs like this and there are no Braille menus, so Foggy decides for both of them – and watch the performance on the scene. Well. Foggy watches. Matt listens to the smooth jazz with only one ear, focusing partially on the conversations going on around them. Nothing suspicious so far.

"My parents are inviting you to dinner this Sunday," Foggy says. "I've sold them that FBI story we agreed on, so if you plan on coming you might need to work out some details."

"Mhm." 

Someone comes into the club. Wait. This one Matt knows. Sugar, he's heard him and of him during his three weeks in Harlem. Luke's right hand man. He has a gun, small, hidden under his suit jacket.

"Marci told me that Rand Enterprises is not happy with the counsel they've been getting at Chao and Benowitz, and that they might go back to Hogarth. You're friends with Danny, perhaps you could get him to throw some cases at us? Having such a client would do us good."

Two more guys with concealed guns appear and head upstairs, to the office overlooking the club. Where, Matt assumes, Luke now resides. "Sounds lovely."

"I'm going to ask Marci to marry me, properly this time. Already bought a ring and everything, booked a table at that new Japanese restaurant in SoHo."

"That's nice."

Sugar towards one of the more private booths. There are three people sitting there and Matt recognises none of them. If he focuses enough he can catch parts of their hushed conversation, something about transports and councilor seat and--

"--have cancer. The doctors gave me six months to live."

Matt's attention snaps back to his table. " _What_."

"Which part?"

"The cancer part." No. No way. He'd--he'd know if Foggy were sick. If Foggy were sick he'd smell of hospitals, would carry the stench of them with him, and Matt would know. He couldn't _not_ know. "What do you mean _six months_."

"I was just checking if you're paying attention." There are traces of humour in Foggy's voice, but also something else. Exasperation. And maybe a hint of disappointment. "We did come here for friendly drinks and conversation, after all."

That _was_ half of the reason why Matt wanted to come here, and now here he was, focusing only on the other fifty percent. "You're not dying."

"Everyone dies eventually," Foggy says and Matt grimaces at that, now of all times Foggy decides to become all philosophical, "but not in the next six months, don't worry."

"That was a terrible thing to say, Foggy."

"Got your attention alright. Good to know you care at least that much."

"Of course I care," Matt bristles. "Foggy, you--"

He doesn't get the chance to finish that sentence as Foggy interrupts him with a gasp. Truthfully, he's not sure how he'd have ended that statement.

"Holy shit."

"What?"

Foggy inclines his head in the direction of the booth Luke's guy went to. "That's Rosalie Carbone in the booth you've been checking out. And Anibal Izqueda next to her."

Matt frowns. "Izqueda, Izqueda... Why does that surname sound familiar?"

Foggy leans closer to him and explains in a hushed voice, "Puerto Rican mob. And Rosalie Carbone is the head of the Italian mafia. Rumour has it she was a guest at Fisk's wedding."

"Good for her. Who's the third person?"

Foggy cranes his head, then shakes it. "I don't recognise him. Might be Carbone's muscle, she rarely goes anywhere without a bodyguard."

There's movement at the booth. Sugar offers his hand to Rosalie Carbone and helps her up, then bends and whispers in her ear. Rosalie Carbone nods and allows Sugar to lead her towards the stairs. Her two companions stay put.

Matt, on the other hand, gets up.

"What are you doing?" Foggy hisses, trying to grab Matt's arm and force him down.

"I need to figure out what Luke got himself into." Because it's clear he got himself into _something_. The Luke Matt knew would never be chummy with mobsters. And while Matt could understand and excuse becoming Harlem's sheriff – everyone needed a hobby and Matt didn't have a leg to stand on when it came to criticising others – but being friendly with people who were friendly with _Fisk_ just wasn't acceptable.

Matt tugs his arm out of Foggy's grasp and makes his way across the club and towards the stairs. Behind him he can hear Foggy utter a faint "damn it" and hasten to follow Matt. Which proves to be a wise decision on his part when Matt gets stopped not five steps away from the staircase by one of the guys with guns.

Matt adjusts his glasses, purposefully drawing the guy's attention to them. The guy stops pushing against Matt's chest so forcefully – assaulting a disabled man would make for bad rep – but doesn't retract his hand. Matt's about to make up some bullshit excuse for snooping around, has his mouth open when he feels Foggy's hand land on his shoulder.

"We were hoping to see Mr. Cage," Foggy tells the guy. He squeezes Matt's shoulder, silently telling him to keep quiet.

"Mr. Cage is busy," the guy grunts out.

"I'm sure Mr. Cage will find time for us," Foggy says politely and Matt imagines he flashes a grin. People have trouble saying 'no' when Foggy smiles. Matt has never seen Foggy's smile and maybe that's why he never had that problem. "Tell him that his lawyer, Foggy Nelson, is sitting over there," Foggy points towards their abandoned booth, "with Mr. Murdock."

The guy grunts his assent and waits for them to move away. Foggy squeezes Matt's shoulder one last time and drags him back to their seats. Matt keeps tracking the guy; once he and Foggy make his way out of his eyesight, he does walk upstairs and into Luke's office. 

"I had it handled," Matt says.

"I don't doubt that." Foggy drains the rest of his drink. "But since you've already included me in you clandestine activity, I thought I might as well make myself useful and make this easier for everyone. It's less suspicious to say that Luke's lawyer stopped by than whatever crazy story you would have come up with." 

It is, Matt admits in the privacy of his own headspace. He didn't think of that. He just keeps forgetting that, by the virtue of being his friend, he dragged Foggy into this crazy world of local superheroes and that, apparently, Foggy thrived in it in Matt's absence.

Come to think of it, Foggy probably has now more to do with Luke and Danny than Matt does. But not with Jessica; Matt doubts anyone at all has a lot to do with Jessica.

"Thank you," is what he decides to say.

Foggy clinks his empty glass against Matt's still full one. "See? I can help you," Foggy says, "if you let me."

_Luke (two)_

"Sweet Christmas." Luke exclaims. He stops a meter away from their table and gapes at the two of them, his erstwhile lawyer, currently tipsy from the cloyingly sweet drinks he kept ordering, and his one-time situational teammate, currently not dead.

"Hi, Luke." This time Foggy grins for sure. Matt can practically hear it in his voice. "Look whom I brought."

"Matt Murdock," Luke says with not a little bit of awe in his voice. "Back from the dead."

"Luke Cage," Matt replies, "king of Harlem."

It's an obvious bait that Luke doesn't take. Instead he crosses the last two steps to their booth and sits down on Foggy's left, essentially sandwiching him between himself and Matt. Matt can feel Luke's gaze on himself for a long minute.

"Pardon my asking," Luke says, "but are you _back_ back or are you like one of those zombie ninjas?"

On Matt's left, Foggy giggles. Definitely too many fancy strawberry drinks. "I was never dead," he explains. "You just assumed."

"A logical assumption to make," Luke shoots back. "A whole-ass office building fell on your head. That stupid helmet of yours had to be sturdier than I thought if you survived that. How did you crawl out of there anyway?"

Matt doesn't know. Even now, months later, he still doesn't know. "Just got lucky."

"Does it mean your," here Luke swirls his finger against his temple, "girlfriend is also back."

Matt freezes. Elektra. He didn't think of that. If he survived, and he was just a mere human, then what of Elektra, a supernatural immortal weapon of the Hand? But if she had, she would have contacted him. She would have, wouldn't she? They loved each other. Back at Midland Circle, at the end of all things, she remembered that much. She remembered that.

She would have. "I doubt that," he tells Luke. Eager to change the subject he follows with, "I see you're doing fine for yourself."

"You see shit," Foggy murmurs.

"Nothing happens in Harlem without my knowledge," Luke says simply.

It's a statement of fact. Somehow, it sounds like a threat.

_Jessica_

He meant to contact her. He meant to meet up with her. He meant to find a way to tell her that he wasn't dead.

In the end, it's Jessica who finds him. Or, to be more precise, her fist finds his nose. Under normal circumstances he'd have caught her fist before it collided with his face, but they were at _Josie's_ – and Foggy was right, Josie _was_ happy to see him – and he had a secret identity to protect. A blind somewhat helpless lawyer shouldn't be able to see a punch coming. To protect his cover he let Jessica hit him, and that enraged her more than anything else.

"You're a goddamn fucking asshole," she spits at him, undeterred by the unkind comments of other bar patrons. A young woman punching a blind man, terrible even by _Josie's_ standards.

"Hello, Jessica."

"Don't you _dare_ 'hello, Jessica' me. You're a fucker. You let us think that you've died, you make that idiot Danny into some sort of your successor and fill his head with ideas of being a protector of this city, you make us watch those two friends of your cry their eyes out in grief. Who the fuck does that?!"

She's shaking. She's shaking and doesn't even smell of alcohol – unusual for her, in his recollection – and he grabs her wrists to keep her upright. He's afraid that without that support she'd have fallen down.

"Let go of me." She bats his hands away and manages to remain standing.

"I'm sorry." He means it all, the wrist-holding and the rest.

"Yeah, whatever. Fuck you."

That's... not how he pictured this meeting. He was under no illusion that Jessica might react positively to his not being dead, but he didn't expect this level of negativity.

Jessica moves past him and towards the bar where he collapses onto one of the stools and hides her face in her hands. Matt takes a seat next to her. "Would you like a drink?"

"Yes," comes the muffled reply. "But I can't. I tried. I tried drinking, and then I tried drinking _more_ , and it all just makes everything worse." She drops her hands and turns her head towards him. "Do you even realise what an asshole thing you've done? I'm not even talking about the impact you staying behind had on Luke or Danny or me. We weren't friends, we got over it. Or Luke and I did, Danny sort of didn't." She waves a hand dismissively. "But your friends? Do you know how gutting a feeling it is, knowing that someone you loved like a sibling is gone, forever? That you've lost them because you couldn't help them or protect them? That it all went to shit?"

He orders two glasses of whiskey. The moment they arrive, Jessica pushes hers away.

"I know what it's like to lose people."

Jessica snorts. "Yeah, but not like that. We've both lost parents. We've both lost loved ones. But you've never lost a sibling, a best friend, so don't even try to crash this pity party. This is my pity party."

"Alright." He vaguely remembers helping Jessica save another woman from the Hand, presumably said sister. The days hectic days leading up to the Midland Circle fight are all a blur. "I'm sorry."

"So you've said."

"For your loss," he clarifies.

"She's not dead," Jessica says between handfuls of peanuts. "She's just--gone."

Jessica doesn't elaborate further. Matt wonders if he should press. She wasn't wrong, they're not exactly friends, but they're also not strangers and they've shared something that other people would never understand. And it appears that Jessica might finally be unable to bottle things up anymore. "Do you want to--"

"I don't want to talk about it," she interrupts him. "And if you want to know what happened, read the goddamn newspapers."

Jessica finishes the peanuts while Matt downs his whiskey. They sit in silence; Matt's not sure what he could say and Jessica not willing to talk at all.

"You're still an asshole," Jessica says eventually, long after Matt has given up on hearing her speak again, "but I'm glad that you're not dead. For your family's sake."

_interlude (two)_

He runs into the Iron Fist, but instead of getting to meet Danny, like he'd hoped, he faces a young woman with a katana. He thinks he recognises her from somewhere, but cannot quite place her.

He asks her about Danny. She doesn't reply.

_Marci_

She invites him out for lunch one beautiful April day. They meet in a fancy East Side bistro where prices are so high that Matt worries he won't be even able to afford a plain bagel. They're doing fine, financially, between some new clients that they gained and the old ones that Foggy took with him from Hogarth's and Karen's side P.I. gig, but they're also not rolling in money. Not the way Marci is as a senior associate at Chao and Benowitz.

Marci clicks her tongue when she sees him. "You're late."

Matt feels his watch. "Nope. It's five to noon and we agreed to meet at noon. You're too early."

"I see your stint as the guest of the FBI did nothing to improve your character." Ah, yes. The cover story that he and Foggy came up with to explain to people not-in-the-know why he was missing for several months. He needs to be careful not to trip on any details.

"And I see you're as lovely as always, Marce."

"What can I say, it's the power of my charming personality."

Matt takes the chair opposite her and sniffs. French onion soup. Fresh bread. Grated cheese. Marci didn't wait for him with her order. Charming indeed. "So," he says.

"So," she repeats. A ring on her left ring finger clinks against her glass as she takes it. A diamond, not too big but also not small enough to make someone think it was a poor man's engagement ring. White gold because Marci loved silver, but was allergic, and despised the yellow hue of regular gold.

Foggy was very excited about it. He wanted a winter wedding.

"You invited me out for lunch," Matt reminds her, "so I assume there is something you wanted to talk about."

Marci trails a finger over her ring. "A couple of things," she says. She eats a few spoonfuls of her soup to stall, then gets lucky when a waiter spots Matt and rushes to take his order. "In the interest of us having a good relationship once you become my brother-in-law."

Brother-in-law? "I'm not Foggy's brother," he says and forces the pang of sadness as far down as it can go. "Foggy has exactly one brother and that's not me."

"Oh please," he's certain Marci rolled her eyes, "you're practically family, and as much as I love Theo, he and Foggy aren't as close as you and Foggy. Theo I'm going to see for Thanksgiving and Christmas. You, on the other hand, I'm probably going to have over for dinner every Sunday."

He'd be lying if he said that wasn't the future he wanted. But he wasn't sure if he and Foggy were still as close as Marci thought they were.

"I promise I'll bring wine every time," he jokes as a deflection.

But Marci's not being playful today. "He thought you were dead."

Matt closes his eyes. The motion is not visible behind his glasses and changes nothing about what he can see, but it's an ingrained reaction that he never rid himself of. Close your eyes and you can pretend you're hidden from the world and its scrutiny.

"I know," he whispers. The memory of Foggy hugging him in that bar, after months of mourning him, will never not hurt.

"And the thing is, I don't particularly care if you're dead or alive," Marci's heart skips a beat and the corner of Matt's mouth lifts in a small smile at the lie, "but you're important to my future husband. You've hurt him and I won't allow it to happen again."

"It won't happen again," Matt hastens to assure her and is surprised to find that he means it, from the bottom of his heart. "And it's not exactly like I had a choice in tha--"

"You're a resourceful man, Murdock," Marci cuts in. "I'm sure that if you'd wanted him to know you were fine, you'd have found a way to inform him."

Funny how Marci is basing her assessment on a completely false set of facts and still manages to be absolutely right. Matt could have got a message to Foggy. He just... didn't want to.

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

Marci sighs. "It's not me you should be apologising to."

"I have apologised to him."

Marci tilts her head and her whole posture relays doubt. "Have you?"

He's pretty sure he has. But even if he had, no apology is worth anything if it's not accompanied by sincerity, and that he certainly didn't give.

_Danny_

He's sitting in his office when his door bursts open and Danny Rand steps inside, followed by their secretary Alyssa, sputtering apologies about not being able to stop this madman. Matt grins and dismisses her with a wave of hand. She wasn't swooning around because of the handsome billionaire so it's a fair bet that Danny came here dressed in his usual baggy rags.

Good to know that some things remained the same, however few they might be.

"Matt," Danny breathes and it sounds like a benediction. "Luke told me. At first I couldn't believe, thought that he was having me, but then Colleen mentioned having run into you as well. That's--that's--"

"Good to see you too, Danny."

Danny shakes his head. "I would have come earlier, but my brother and I just came back from overseas. We've been gone for several months and I thought nothing of it at first, but it turns out we've missed _so much_."

Matt can relate.

"My board of directors fired Jeri, which was a terrible idea and I'm working on it," Danny rambles on, "and then there was that string of robberies, and Luke got into trouble, and the business with Jessica's sister, and you're back--"

"Danny."

Danny huffs out a laugh. "Sorry. It's just--for the first time in a long while it feels like things are starting to work out."

Matt thinks briefly about their office, about Karen and Foggy just behind his closed door, and agrees. Out loud, he says, "You're not the Iron Fist anymore."

Danny scratches his head. "Not exactly. I mean, I can still channel my chi, I'm just--not _the_ Iron Fist. Colleen is. You've met Colleen, she was with us at Midland Circle. She helped Claire plant the bombs."

Ah. That's where he knows that woman from.

"It's better this way," Danny carries on. "I wanted to be the Iron Fist to prove to everyone that I could do it. That's not a motivation worthy of that title. For Colleen it's a birthright and she's more worthy of the power than me."

"I'm sure that's not true. Perhaps you were motivated by the selfish desire to prove yourself, but you've used your power well."

"Not well enough," Danny murmurs under his breath. Louder he says, "I tried to honour your last request. I tried to protect your city."

"Our city," Matt corrects him. In the months he was pretending to be dead the only things that happened were the sequel to the Frank Castle drama and Luke's Harlem problems, neither of which Danny could have prevented and the latter of which he actively tried to help with. "And you've done a great job."

"Now that you're back, we could get the team back together."

"What?"

"The Defenders," Danny says as if that meant anything to Matt. "The four of us, saving people and protecting the city." Matt must be sporting a particularly baffled expression because Danny laughs. "That's what _The Daily Bugle_ called us after Midland Circle. The Defenders: knock-off Avengers. I don't know, I kind of like it. Jessica thinks it's insulting, but that's Jess, everything is personally insulting to her."

Matt smiles. Whatever happened to Danny on that overseas trip with his brother, whatever he discovered and learnt, it seems to have transformed him from the broody sworn enemy of the Hand that Matt's met before Midland Circle into an overenthusiastic guy who got excited to be called a poor man's Avenger.

And good. Joy sounded good on Danny.

And it was contagious. Two years ago Matt would have said that he works better alone, that flying solo he could get things done his way and nothing and no one would interfere. Today he knows he value of having friends with you. And, if he were being honest, he enjoyed his impromptu team-up with Danny, Luke and Jess enough to be willing to try it again.

"I think it could grow on me," he says because he knows it will make Danny grin.

_Jessica (two)_

"I've read the goddamn newspapers," he tells Jessica the moment she picks up.

_"Fuck off, Murdock."_

"She had powers, right? Your sister. That's why she was taken to the Raft."

_"Yeah," Jessica confirms. "Almost died to get them. All because she wanted to be special and to be a hero, just like me."_

"Things that give people powers often can change your brain. I'll look into it, but I think we might have something there."

_"What, your excuse for her would be that some chemicals messed up her brain? That's lame and stupid."_

"It happened to me."

Jessica is silent for a moment. _"I appreciate what you're doing,"_ she says and doesn't sound appreciative in the least, _"but I need to face the facts. She's where she belongs."_

"Perhaps there's an explanation for what happened," Matt says and then adds, "You've killed too."

It's a low blow. _"Fuck you."_

"All I'm saying is that perhaps you shouldn't be giving up on her."

_"Just like you couldn't give up on your homicidal girlfriend? And what exactly did that get you, huh? Peace? Happiness? Fulfillment? No. It got you tons of concrete falling on your head. Perhaps that messed with it."_

"You're right," Matt tells her. "I couldn't give up on Elektra. And perhaps it got me nothing but pain, but at least I will never regret not trying."

This time Jessica is silent for so long that Matt begins to think the call disconnected. _"Fine,"_ she says, _"but next time call me with something more concrete than 'I might have something'."_

And then she does hang up.

"I will."

_Foggy (four)_

They're sitting on Matt's couch, drinking beer, eating pizza and watching something terrible on Netflix, when Matt gathers the courage to do what he should have done months ago.

"I'm sorry," he says.

Foggy glances away from the laptop. "Huh?"

"I'm sorry," Matt repeats, "for all those months when I've let you think I was dead."

"It's okay," Foggy tells him and Matt can hear both in his voice and in the staccato of his heartbeat that it's not okay. "You've already apologised."

He had. "But I haven't explained."

"Matt--"

"No." The closes the laptop shut and rearranges himself on the couch so that he's facing Foggy. It's for Foggy's benefit more than his own, but it seems important that Foggy can see his face. That Foggy knows he's being sincere. "It's important that you know what happened."

"I already know what happened," Foggy says softly. "The bombs exploded. You stayed behind. Everything collapsed. Then you hid away at your mum's convent."

"Everyone else fought hard to go back to the people they loved," Matt points out. "I didn't."

The admission stings. He's never said it out loud before. He's certainly thought it, but he never voiced those thoughts.

"I didn't think I had anything to go back to," he carries on when Foggy stays silent. He probably wouldn't find it in him to continue if Foggy were commenting. "The job I loved turned into something I hated because I was doing it alone. I was convinced I had no friends anymore. I've lost all of that, I've sacrificed all of that for Elektra. And then she died and I neither had her nor I had my life. It was all gone. So when I realised that we were fighting Elektra down there, when I realised she remembered who I was--I just didn't want to leave. I wanted to stay there, with her, because I though that maybe that way, if I got to stay with her until I died, losing everything else would have been worth it."

"But I survived. I was broken in every way imaginable and I still didn't have Elektra and didn't have my life, but I was alive. And I thought that perhaps it would be better if Matt Murdock stayed dead. It wasn't like he had a lot to come back to."

"You had me," Foggy says.

"No, I didn't. Not really."

Foggy looks down on his hands. "Tell me one thing," he asks, "if Fisk hadn't resurfaced, would you have ever come back?"

He doesn't have to ponder the answer. "No." Foggy deflates at that. "And that would have been the greatest mistake on a long list of mistakes. So, in a way, I'm glad that he did."

Foggy bumps Matt's hand with his knuckles. "And what about now? Does Matt Murdock think he has something to come back to now?"

A smile tugs at the corners of Matt's lips. "He has you and he'd like to keep it that way."

"Perfect, then, because I'm not going anywhere."

_Matt_

He gets a chance to meet his fellow one-time teammates a week later when, amongst the yelling and confusion, Danny Rand texts them all: aliens in NYC, gotta help Avngrs. It's aliens. Again. Of course it's aliens. Spring six years later and they have aliens descending onto the city again.

Foggy calls. _"You've heard?"_

"That we have aliens again? Yeah."

 _"Are you going out?"_ In costume, as Daredevil, Foggy means, but doesn't have to voice that part. They both know.

"Yes. Danny texted. He and Colleen are out there already. We have to help."

He expects Foggy to tell him not to. He expects Foggy to say that it's too dangerous. What he doesn't expect – and perhaps he should have, they both have grown in the months since Midland – is for Foggy to say, _"Do what you have to, just be careful. And call me after, I need to know you're safe."_

In the end it's less of a battle and more of a damage control situation. The alien ship departs as abruptly as it appeared, leaving behind dust, debris and terrified people. Matt spends the next day helping to find trapped people and herding them towards Luke and Jessica who make sure to take them to the makeshift medical tents provided courtesy of Rand Enterprises.

"People are surprisingly chill considering that the city has just been invaded by aliens," Danny observes.

"That's probably because this isn't their first rodeo," Jessica explains. "We've had another little invasion five years ago."

"Six," Matt corrects her automatically.

"Yeah, yeah." Jessica waves a hand. "Whatever. I'm starving."

Danny takes them to his favourite shwarma place that's still, despite the aliens and general mayhem, miraculously open. They eat and laugh, because this isn't the first rodeo for three of them and Danny fought an actual dragon once, so his level of tolerance for weird was high.

Matt forgets to call Foggy. He forgets all about Foggy until the next morning when his phone's flat 'Marci, Marci' wakes him up.

"What?"

_"Is he there with you?"_

Matt rubs his eyes tiredly. "Who?"

 _"Foggy."_ Dread settles in the pit of Matt's stomach. Shit. He was supposed to call. _"He went over to your place to check up on you, but that was almost two hours ago and I can't reach him on the phone. I'm worried."_

That was an understatement. Marci was panicking.

"I'm sure everything's fine, Marce. I'll try calling him, okay?"

Marci hangs up without a goodbye. Matt puts his phone down. It's quiet around him. Oh, there are the usual noises of a city – and also the unusual, but expected ones, considering that they did just go through another alien attack – but it's eerily quiet in his building. He checks the time. Normally at this hour Fran is playing loud music while cooking and the kids downstairs are having a fight. Now there's nothing except for muffled sobbing of someone Matt after a moment recognises as his downstairs neighbour, the kids' mother.

He has a bad feeling about this.

He taps his phone and dials Foggy. One, two, starting from the third signal he can hear both the beeping of the line and the melody that Foggy assigned to him. It's coming--it's coming from inside the building, the landing between his floor and the lower one most likely. Matt puts the phone down without disconnecting, throws on the first T-shirt he can find, takes the phone again and ventures first out of his bedroom and then out of his apartment. The phone is definitely ringing closer and closer with every step, and the air is curiously filled with ash.

He finds the phone lying on the ground and no Foggy around. He reaches out for it and his hand glides through a pile of dust that surrounds it. Curious, Hell's Kitchen wasn't even close to where the big Avengers v. aliens battle took place, his apartment building shouldn't have got so dusty.

He picks up the phone and cleans the dust off on his sweatpants. There has to be a logical explanation for why here was Foggy's phone, but no Foggy around, he tells himself as he flips it in his hand. After all it was impossible that something could have happened to Foggy with Matt merely half a corridor away. 

Foggy must have dropped it, Matt decides as he pockets the phone. He was here to check up on Matt, but then left, perhaps to get some fresh bagels. And he dropped his phone. Yes, that had to be it.

Matt steps over the pile of ash and heads back to his apartment. Perhaps he'll even make coffee.

**Author's Note:**

> I tried my best to make sense of the convulted MCU timeline. What I do know for sure is that DD s3 takes place after LC s2 and IF s2, but before JJ s3. And all of those take place before Thanos' snap. So. There.


End file.
